Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship
"Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship" is the second episode in the first season of HBO's Watchmen, and second episode overall. It aired on October 27, 2019. Premise As Angela relives haunting memories of an attack on her family, she detains a mysterious man who claims responsibility for Tulsa's most recent murder. Elsewhere, an original play is performed for an audience of one. Synopsis During World War I, a German kommandant recruits an English-fluent woman from a typing pool. In his office, the kommandant dictates a propaganda message aimed at disaffected African-American troops, encouraging them to defect to the German side. The message is made into a leaflet distributed by airdrop over O.B. Reeves's army unit. This message strikes a chord with O.B., who keeps the leaflet after the war. A century later, his aged son Will holds the leaflet -- with the message "WATCH OVER THIS BOY" written on the back -- as he sits next to Judd's hanging body and is approached by Angela. Angela takes Will from the crime scene and brings him to her bakery, where she handcuffs him to a railing in the kitchen. She changes into her Sister Night costume in the basement, but not before she vents her anger and sadness over Judd's death. Under Angela's questioning, Will claims that he killed and strung up Judd, stating that he has psychic powers. He further claims that Judd had "skeletons in his closet" and was part of an "insidious conspiracy" in Tulsa. When Angela demands to know Will's name, he initially claims to be Doctor Manhattan before admitting that his name is Will. Angela manages to disprove Will's claims of being psychic when she challenges him to use his powers to move his bottle of pills. She receives a phone call telling her what she already knows about Judd. She bags a coffee mug Will has been drinking from for DNA testing. Will is left in the bakery while Angela drives back to the crime scene. Outside the bakery, a newsvendor talks about the recent squidfall with a delivery man and trades a large stack of newspapers with a young customer. At the crime scene, Angela finds herself being questioned by Looking Glass, who asks about her and Judd's movements the previous night. Angela's thoughts go back to Christmas Eve of 2016, when she and Cal were attacked in their home by a Seventh Kavalry gunman. Angela managed to fatally stab the gunman, only to be shot by another Kavalryman and fallen into unconsciousness. Angela came to in the hospital with a bandaged Judd at her bedside, who informed her that her partner Doyle and his wife were murdered in what the press has dubbed the "White Night"; their children -- Topher, Emma, and Rosie -- survived the attack. Back in the present, a pair of paparazzi wearing mechanical wings are shot down and restrained by the cops. An angry Red Scare assumes that the Kavalry is responsible for Judd's murder and commandeers a group of masked cops to confront the residents of Nixonville, threatening to tear down the encampment's statue of President Nixon unless they give up the killer. The scene descends into chaos as the cops beat and round up Nixonville residents. Despite thinking that Red Scare's tactics are excessive, Angela protects Looking Glass from an attack and beats the assailant to a bloody pulp. To have Will's DNA tested outside official channels, Angela goes to the Greenwood Center for Cultural Heritage, where testing machines have been set up to determine reparation eligibility for descendants of victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. She takes a swab of Will's DNA from the coffee mug and submits it to the machine. When she returns home, she finds a man named Andy -- a blood relative of her adopted children -- sitting on her porch, demanding to see them. Angela hands Andy a check to make him go away. Inside, Cal, who has been playing with Emma and Rosie, asks Angela if their family is safe in the wake of Judd's murder. Upstairs, Angela breaks the bad news to Topher, who volunteers to inform his sisters himself. Later that night, as Angela leaves the house, Topher and Cal are watching the premiere of the TV series American Hero Story, which dramatizes the life of the first costumed adventurer, Hooded Justice. Angela drives to the Crawford residence, where a wake for Judd is being held. There, Angela greets Judd's widow Jane and meets Joe Keene, a conservative U.S. senator who is running to succeed President Redford. Keene breaks protocol and publicly addresses Angela as a cop. She feigns a fainting spell so that she can be moved to the Crawfords' bedroom upstairs. She assures Jane that she will work diligently to find Judd's killers. Once she is left alone, Angela uses a pair of X-ray goggles to examine the bedroom. She finds a hidden room in Judd's closet and is shocked to discover that it contains a white Klansman's robe. Angela takes the robe and discreetly leaves the house. At Veidt's castle, Adrian rides horseback and eats from a tomato grown on a tree. Inside, he rushes through the customary "anniversary" party, eager to prepare for the first performance of his play "The Watchmaker's Son." Mr. Phillips asks for the pocket watch, needing it as a prop. The first act of the play is revealed to be a reenactment of Dr. Jon Osterman's accident in the intrinsic field generator, with Mr. Phillips playing Osterman and Mrs. Crookshanks playing Janey Slater. Cast Main Cast * Regina King as Angela Abar/Sister Night * Tim Blake Nelson as Looking Glass * Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Cal Abar * Andrew Howard as Red Scare * Tom Mison as Mr. Phillips * Sara Vickers as Mrs. Crookshanks * Dylan Schombing as Topher Doyle * Louis Gossett Jr. as Will Reeves * Jeremy Irons as Adrian Veidt Guest Starring *Don Johnson as Judd Crawford *Frances Fisher as Jane Crawford *James Wolk as Joe Keene *Jim Beaver as Andy *Robert Ray Wisdom as Seymour *Cheyenne Jackson as Hooded Justice *Lily Rose Smith as Rosie Doyle *Adelynn Spoon as Emma Abar *Jolie Hoang-Rappaport as Bian Co-Starring *Danny Boyd, Jr. as Young Will *Dr. Henry Louie Gates as Skip Gates *Steven G. Norfleet as O.B. Williams *Miles Doleac as German Officer *Annika Pampel as Fraulein Mueller *Christian Robinson as Delivery Guy *Jim Braswell as Singer *Brian Stapf as Tattooed Man *Luke David Blumm as Newspaper Boy *Ryan Czerwonko as Ringleader *Vince Pisani as Cashier *Tevin Marbeth as Soldier *Kate Kovach as Dame *Faye Yvette McQueen as Fashionable Lady *Moses J. Moseley as Usher Deaths * 1 Member of Seventh Kavalry * 1 Unknown Villain (American Hero Story) * 4 Robber (American Hero Story) * Unknown Clone Gallery Episode Stills S01 EP02 stills 01.jpeg S01 EP02 stills 02.jpeg S01 EP02 stills 03.jpeg S01 EP02 stills 04.jpeg S01 EP02 stills 05.jpeg S01 EP02 stills 06.jpeg S01 EP02 stills 07.jpeg Trivia *The episode’s title is named after the painting Comanche Feats of Martial Horsemanship by George Catlin. However, the words have been mixed around. *The reenacting of Doctor Manhattan's origin featured the song "Ride of the Valkyries" that previously appeared in the film adaption during the Vietnam war sequence. *In an interview with TVLine, Tom Mison revealed that Maez's penis, from when he plays Doctor Manhattan, belonged to a body double. He also wore a t-shirt with a picture of it to alert his neighbors in case they watched the episode.- Watchmen's Tom Mison on His Extremely Revealing Scene in Ep 2: 'That Is Not My Penis' - TVLine *Henry Louie Gates makes a cameo appearance as a fictionalized version of himself. References 102